Brad Penner-Imagn Images

Last Friday, after missing the entire 2025 season due to Tommy John surgery, Gerrit Cole fared well in his return to the Yankees rotation, firing six scoreless innings against the Rays even while struggling to miss bats. On Wednesday night in Kansas City, Cole truly looked back, this time throwing 6 2/3 scoreless innings while striking out 10 Royals without issuing a walk. The former Cy Young winner’s reassuring performance is a welcome development for a rotation that has weathered some high-profile absences — and will have to continue doing so.

The Yankees began the season with Cole, Carlos Rodón, and Clarke Schmidt all recovering from elbow surgeries, and while the first two have now returned, Max Fried — their most valuable pitcher last season — has been sidelined for a spell, as has 2024 AL Rookie of the Year Luis Gil. Nonetheless, the team’s rotation has been one the game’s best thus far, leading the majors in WAR (7.5), leading the AL in FIP (3.22), and ranking a close second in the league in both ERA (2.98) and strikeout rate (24.5%). Despite backing that unit with the most potent offense in the league, the 34-22 club finds itself trailing the Rays (34-19) by 1 1/2 games in the AL East.

Prior to last Friday, Cole’s last competitive appearance in the majors had been a reminder of a golden opportunity lost: His inexplicable failure to cover first base in the fifth inning of Game 5 of the 2024 World Series fueled the Dodgers’ comeback from a 5-0 deficit on a night they ended up clinching the title. Limited to 17 starts that season due to nerve irritation and edema in his elbow after finally bringing home a Cy Young award in 2023, Cole made just two appearances in spring training last year before being diagnosed with a torn UCL and undergoing surgery. He progressed enough in his recovery to make two brief appearances in Grapefruit League games this spring, then continued his rehab by making six starts spread across three minor league levels before returning to the Yankees.

Along the way, Cole adopted an old-school overhead windup to start his delivery, something he picked up while playing catch during his rehab. “I just generally enjoy the rhythm of it. I think it keeps the tempo of the delivery kind of upbeat and fluid,” he told the Trentonian’s Greg Johnson last month. Here’s a comparison of his first pitch in that fateful Game 5 with his first pitch to the Royals’ Maikel Garcia on Wednesday night:

In his return against the Rays, Cole quickly found trouble, allowing a leadoff single to Chandler Simpson and then walking Junior Caminero, but after that he retired 12 of the next 13 hitters, and also picked Simpson off second base for the second out of the first inning. He surrendered just one more hit, a one-out fifth-inning single by Cedric Mullins, and two more walks, one to Richie Palacios leading off the second and one to Taylor Walls with two outs in the fifth. He departed after six scoreless innings and 72 pitches with a 1-0 lead, but the bullpen coughed up four runs in the eighth and the Yankees lost, 4-2.

For that outing, Cole’s four-seam fastball averaged 96.2 mph, up 0.3 mph from his 2024 regular-season average, and generated a 21.4% whiff rate, right in the ballpark of his 23.5% whiff rate on the pitch in ’24. Yet he got just two whiffs on other pitches, one on his sinker and one on his slider, and so he struck out just two of the 22 batters he faced while walking three. It was just the eighth time in 318 career starts that he walked more batters than he struck out. Manager Aaron Boone attributed the low whiff and strikeout totals to the Rays’ aggressive, contact-oriented approach, saying, “I thought the stuff I was looking at tonight [was there]. Moving forward, I think there’ll be nights where the swing and miss is there.”

Cole looked much sharper against the Royals, with the full arsenal of his pitches working — though, granted, these days there’s a significant difference between facing Tampa Bay and Kansas City. Even after losing their last four games, the Rays still rank third in the league in scoring (4.64 runs per game) and fifth in wRC+ (103), with the league’s lowest strikeout rate (18.6%) to boot, while the Royals are last in the AL in both scoring (3.77 runs per game) and wRC+ (89), with the fifth-lowest strikeout rate (21.6%). The Rays have three regulars with a wRC+ of 130 or better, while the Royals have just one with a wRC+ of 100 or better, namely Bobby Witt Jr. (130 wRC+, to go with his major league-leading 3.5 WAR).

By the time Cole finished his first inning on Wednesday night, he had already matched last Friday’s totals of strikeouts and whiffs on non-four-seamers. He struck out Witt (who swung through a slider for strike two, then foul-tipped a four-seamer for strike three) and Vinnie Pasquantino (who missed a changeup for strike two, then froze against a well-placed low-and-away changeup) after left fielder José Caballero made a diving catch on Garcia’s liner.

Cole struck out two more apiece in the second and third, and got more help from his defense in the latter frame. After Michael Massey hit a one-out double, Cole whiffed Isaac Collins on a changeup off the plate away, and then, when Garcia dunked a single into right field, Judge threw a perfect strike to catcher Austin Wells to nail Massey at the plate.

Cole then retired the next eight hitters, four on strikeouts, before Garcia roped a two-out double in the sixth. After getting ahead of Witt, 0-2, Cole induced him to chase a high-and-outside sinker and fly out harmlessly to right.

Leading 2-0 after six, the Yankees loaded the bases with nobody out in the top of the seventh and brought all three runners home. Cole had thrown just 70 pitches, so he returned for the bottom of the seventh after a lengthy sit-down. He got Pasquantino to pop out his first pitch, yielded a single to Salvador Perez, and departed after a Carter Jensen popout. Fernando Cruz and Camilo Doval took the Yankees the rest of the way while the offense chipped in two more runs for a 7-0 win.

As was the case against the Rays, Cole did a good job of limiting hard contact. In both starts, he gave up three hard-hit balls but no barrels, with average exit velocities in the 86–87 mph range. Garcia’s lineout and double were both around 105 mph, with Perez’s single clocking in at an even 100 mph. Beyond that, Cole made things look easy. His four-seamer gained a couple of ticks relative to his first start, averaging 96.4 mph and topping out at 98.4. Again he got three whiffs with the pitch (a 16.7% rate), but this time, he added an additional 12 whiffs via the slider (six, on 10 swings), changeup (four, on nine swings) and knuckle-curve (two, on five swings), so his CSW rate jumped from 33% to 39% from his first start to his second. His chase rate more than doubled, from 22.6% to 45.9%, with batters chasing each of the four aforementioned offerings at least 30% of the time. He needed just 79 pitches to notch 10 strikeouts, one pitch shy of the lowest total for a pitcher in a double-digit strikeout start this year: The Braves’ Martín Pérez struck out 10 Marlins on 78 pitches on May 19.

According to MLB.com’s Sarah Langs, this was Cole’s 23rd time with at least 10 strikeouts and zero walks, a total that trails only Clayton Kershaw (27), Curt Schilling (27), Max Scherzer (31) and Randy Johnson (36), none of whom ever underwent Tommy John surgery, let alone posted such a line in his second start back. Cole’s performance did bring to mind that of his former Astros teammate Justin Verlander, who, after missing all of the 2021 season due to Tommy John surgery, struck out eight Mariners without a walk in eight shutout innings on April 16, 2022, his second start of an impressive age-39 season in which he brought home his third Cy Young.

“At certain points, I felt like I had a little bit of everything working,” Cole said afterwards, adding that he doesn’t often feel that way in games. He dismissed the notion that unlike other Tommy John returnees, he’s somehow better prepared to dominate from the outset, saying, “It’s two games, man, small sample. There’s still stuff to improve.” Cole did note that he has been much more comfortable throwing his fastball than before his surgery: “When I first started throwing and I was able to get through the four-seam better than I had been in the previous few years, that was obviously an encouraging sign.”

Cole’s return is the latest development in a month of turnover within the Yankees rotation. The team began the season with Fried heading a unit that also included Will Warren, mid-2025 call-up Cam Schlittler, January acquisition Ryan Weathers, and Gil, who was limited to 11 starts last season due to a Grade 3 lat strain. Though Gil was rocked for a 6.05 ERA and 8.34 FIP in four starts totaling 19 1/3 innings this year before being optioned to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre on April 27, the rotation posted the majors’ best ERA (2.74), FIP (3.20), and WAR (4.5) through the end of April as the Yankees jumped out to a 21-11 start.

This month, the rotation has been nearly as effective, posting a 3.30 ERA and 3.26 FIP with 3.0 WAR. The 25-year-old Schlittler has emerged as a dominant force. He currently leads the AL in ERA (1.50), FIP (1.90), and WAR (2.9) while ranking second in strikeout-walk differential (24.7%) and home run rate (0.38 per nine). The 26-year-old Warren, who made 33 starts as a rookie last season, has regressed after a strong April but is still carrying a 3.55 ERA and 3.27 FIP. The 26-year-old Weathers (whose father David Weathers came up big as a reliever on the Yankees’ 1996 championship team) has been similarly effective, with a 3.14 ERA and 3.45 FIP.

Rodón’s return has been uneven. He was quite effective last season, making a full complement of 33 starts while pitching to a 3.09 ERA and 3.78 FIP in 195 1/3 innings. But just eight days after taking an early exit from his ugly Division Series start against the Blue Jays, he underwent surgery to shave down a bone spur and remove loose bodies in his elbow. He made his season debut on May 10 and struggled mightily with his command over his first two starts; he walked eight and struck out 10 while giving up six runs (five earned) in a combined eight innings against the Mets and Brewers. He burned through 88 pitches in 3 2/3 innings against the Mets on May 16, but was more effective in his May 21 start against the Blue Jays, holding them to just one run in five innings despite walking three. Thus far, he has a 4.15 ERA and a 3.22 FIP, though he’s averaged a hefty 4.42 pitches per plate appearance. The Yankees have lost all three of his starts while scoring just six runs across those games.

As for Fried, who pitched to a 2.09 ERA and 2.67 FIP in March and April, he was increasingly less effective in his three May starts, allowing 11 runs in 14 1/3 innings before leaving his May 13 outing against the Orioles after three innings due to elbow soreness. From MLB.com’s Bryan Hoch:

Fried described the sensation as akin to a hyperextension, or what one would feel after banging the back of his elbow or triceps against a hard object.

“It’s just a little uncomfortable and tight, especially between innings,” Fried said. “It’s hard for me to loosen up. I just wasn’t sharp, and it was just hard to keep bouncing back. I definitely wasn’t helping the team. I could’ve kept pitching, but at that point, it was like, ‘Hey, let’s make sure we can calm this thing down.’”

After undergoing MRI and CT scans, Fried was diagnosed with a bone bruise in his elbow — but no structural damage to his ligaments or tendons — and placed on the 15-day injured list. He was shut down from any kind of throwing until this past Monday, when he resumed playing catch, but he’s not yet close to more strenuous mound work, as re-imaging showed that he hasn’t healed enough yet. “There’s nothing really that would say he can start the ramp-up process yet,” Boone said.

Meanwhile, after making just one Triple-A start, the 27-year-old Gil was sidelined by shoulder inflammation and has not yet returned to throwing, the latest frustrating turn for the 2024 AL Rookie of the Year. The 30-year-old Schmidt, who pitched to a 3.07 ERA and 3.75 FIP in 30 starts across injury-shortened 2024 and ’25 seasons before undergoing an internal brace procedure last July, has been throwing bullpen sessions but hasn’t been cleared to face hitters.

All of which suggests the Yankees are probably at least a month away from having to figure out which starters could be displaced by those returns (generally an abstract concept since pitchers are always getting hurt). With Cole back and approximating his top form, the team can afford for those starters to take their time, with Triple-A fill-in Elmer Rodríguez (a 22-year-old righty who’s covered three spot starts thus far) and swingmen Ryan Yarbrough or Paul Blackburn on hand if another injury arises in the meantime. Despite their other frustrations — a recent Judge slump, some late-inning bullpen hiccups — such a position has to be the envy of the other 29 teams.